Jewish Atheist

“If you’d be loved, be worthy to be loved.”

Ovid, The Art of Love

If I were to give a Humanistic Valentine’s Day podcast or public speech to a gathering of humanists, it would go something like this:

“First of all let’s dispense with the one-day-a-year love thing. I am firmly against all such holidays and think we should address, every day, the difficult work of being thankful (instead of one day of Thanksgiving), thinking about peace and good will (Christmas), resolving to do better (Jewish High Holidays). I’m not sure exactly what Halloween teaches us. One of my neighbors has a giant inflatable spider. What message does that send?

Common humanity

“As a first step, humanists might or might not acknowledge Valentine’s Day, but they are urged to pursue love, on the basis of our common humanity (same species, truly minute differences). Definitions of love are all over the map. As a jazz musician, I’ve heard thousands of songs about love. Still don’t have a clue, except that it must involve deep respect. I don’t know how it would be possible for an atheist to marry a believer, unless the relationship had other, very strong foundations. How could you love someone who believed in fantasies?

“Same goes for New Agers. Why is it so often women and sensitive gay men who practice these mishmosh belief systems of reincarnation, apocalypse (2012), Atlantis, past lives, feng shui, chakras, meridians, subtle energies, healing touch, qi, and the rest of the bag of garbage? Your spouse doesn’t want to stick to the strict, one-version-of-the-truth traditional religons. Instead, he/she wants to practice dabbling in the fantasies of all the New Age make-believe and in doing so, she (and I use the feminine promnoun intentionally) gets to seem and feel religious while not having to bother with the traditional stuff.

“Along with similarity of outlook and the resultant mutual respect, love involves being loved, i.e., getting one’s needs for physical and emotional affirmation met (e.g., you ARE an attractive, sexy man/woman). It’s reciprocal, a circle.

“The failure of a relationship to meet these needs ensures that the unloved partner will stray, hence all the infidelity and the male-oriented (guess which side feels held out on?), gazillion-dollar strip/porn/prostitution industry. Men just wanna feel loved, and they’ll pay for the pretense, the appearance of female compliance and seduction. Even when you have it all (favorite example: Eliot Spitzer), you still have to feel loved.

“Beyond this, there is the refusal to coerce or defraud, to love one’s neighbor as yourself, found in all religions. Here’s where religion does a Catch-22. Love your neighbor IF he’s Jewish/(one of us). Over the centuries, religon has inspired hatred, violence and murder more often than it has prevented violence and evil. It preaches violent, selective love.

“To Muslims, a Jew is to be converted or exterminated. To Catholics, a Jew like me will never go to heaven. Hey, say hello to Wilt Chamberlain when you get there, you morons. But note: Atheists never tortured anyone (that I know of) for believing. The pain is all one way. Why are they so violent?

“Religions preach love, but more often they inspire at best the arrogance of specialness; at worst, violence, exclusion, and murder.

“So yes, let’s practice love all year round and have a different theme each Valentine’s Day — “Pay Forward,” “Make a Phone Call,” “No Road Rage,” etc. Or even just think about the artificial differences that pit us against each other like animals — and then “Do Something for Somebody Who Doesn’t Look Like You.”

“Go in peace. Love your neighbor.”

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Along with love, Valentine’s Day is known, perhaps especially here in Chicago, for murder (it was, before Michael Jordan, arguably the main thing the city was known for in many parts of the world). For it was here that the violence of black markets exploded in gang bloodshed year after year, here that seven men were massacred and died in agony in a Chicago garage on St. Valentine’s Day, 1929. The killing over booze went on until the nation came to its senses and repealed alcohol Prohibition.

Still with us

But drug prohibition goes on, and so do its evil effects: the trampling of Constitutional rights; the corruption of police and crowding of courts; the overflowing of prisons with nonviolent offenders; the diversion of law enforcement resources from real crime (and violent Muslims); the criminalization of consensual behavior and concurrent loss of respect for the law; the violations of privacy; and the killing, always the killing. Hardly a week goes by that some innocent child or senior isn’t killed in the crossfire.

And CBS has just denied NORML permission to use its Times Square Jumbotron. Too political — that was their excuse. Fear of the government’s displeasure — that’s the real reason.

Casualties of war

Nobel-Prizewinning economist Milton Friedman once estimated that the drug war added 5,000-10,000 violent deaths each year, not to mention the warping of other nations’ economies (let the poppies bloom in Afghanistan and let the Afghan people prosper!) or the destruction of their societies (Colombia).

Change I can believe in

Is it change that you bring, Obama? Then change THIS: end the obscene, unconstitutional drug war. Free every non-violent drug offender. Phase out the DEA and turn drug policy over to the states and communities. Immediately begin a push to repeal the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Stop wasting $40 billion a year on a policy that does no good and incalculable harm.

Took the Oath

But no, beloved Barack will take the Oath of Hypocrisy along with the rest of them. The drug war will drag on and on. It’s long since become part of the background noise, an accepted fact of life.

Died in vain

This is very sad. The men who died on St. Valentine’s Day 1929 did so in vain. We have not learned the awful lessons of drug prohibition. And maybe we never will.